What's Your Nature?

Become a Nature Up North explorer to share your encounters with wild things and wild places in New York's North Country. Post your wildlife sightings, landscape shots, photos from your outings, and even your organization's events!

Encounters

While out trying to find some salamanders that prefer to live in fast moving streams in my herpetology class I found this little crayfish. Surprisingly the little guy didn't pinch me, but was not happy at all to be out of the water. I named it Mr. Pinchy.

My herpetology class went to Glenmeal State Forest to look for some herps and egg masses. While looking in a vernal pool, I found this spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) egg mass connected to a branch in the water.

A baby dusky salamander, three red-backed salamanders (2 shown), one frog (possibly wood), and wood frog eggs were spotted in St. Lawrence County between the hours of 1-4 on a sunny day in April! All herps were found along/near vernal pools! Red-backed salamanders seemed to be bountiful. This is in addition to the four photos I posted last week as encounters!

I went out "herping" with my herpetology class, looking for salamander and frog eggs. I was moving around leaves by a vernal pool and caught a red-backed salamander. Unfortunately, it jumped out of my hand and swam away, but I got to hold it for a few seconds!

This salamander I felt like I wasn't even looking for! Usually I look for larger logs, but I just happened to pick up this stick and it was there. This one is also cool because it shows how dark the sides of the salamander can be.

On Monday, in my herpetology class, I found this wood frog (Rana sylvatica) egg mass in a vernal pool along with a few others at Glenmeal State Forest. Typically there are many more wood frog egg masses in this particular vernal pool by this point in the season, so hopefully more will be there soon!

Visited Glenmeal State Forest for Herpetology lab where we were recording the number of egg masses at each vernal pool. Spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) eggs are recognizable by their smooth, uniform jelly shell! This compares to frog eggs in which each egg is individually covered and creates a bumpy appearance.

One thing I’m curious about are the small flecks of red located in the membrane of the coating. A potential egg predator?

While going out to Glenmeal State Forest for with my Herpetology class for lab this past Monday, we were collecting data and counts for Spotted Salamander eggs, Wood Frog eggs, and Jefferson/Blue-spotted Salamander Complex eggs. Here is an egg mass of Spotted Salamander eggs